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Thursday, June 30, 2011

I'm going away for what amounts to a month, and this will be my last essay until August 1st when I plan to be back- if I'm spared - as the ancients used to say. GarytheTourist has loaned me s some hundred pictures to keep this space busy and pretty till then and I have no doubt my iPad will move me to blog irregularly from Italy as I ride. How to say good bye to my love is the hardest part. She hasn't had it easy in her mixed up life and now at last she does have a permanent home she comes back to every day; except not for the next several weeks.I know the boys will take good care of her, God knows she lingers with them every time we visit and get up to leave. I hope she doesn't forget me while I'm gone because I know I won't forget her. Can't forget Wayne either who cooks all the dogs chicken and rice every day- no wonder Cheyenne likes to hang out with them.And Wayne who drives the boat to Marvin Key to let us all enjoy the back country.And so good bye to all the bystanders who roll through the diary to remind us why we like Key West.Or stand around making my pictures more worthwhile.There are sailboats and lots of water, which I won't see much of at all until I get home from the mountains of Central Italy.There will be tourist attractions where I'm going and I'll be a visitor just like I am sometimes here at home.It is fashionable to hate the tourists once you land in Key West and make it your home but I see tourists behind every paycheck, in every arts movie I get to see at the Tropic in all the exotic and interesting foods they prepare for us in restaurants that would never normally grace a town of 23,000 Americans.

And so the sun sets on my fourth year of keeping a diary, the first diary I have ever kept with any regularity. I am well aware of my mortality and the inevitable passage of time so every time I go away I know I may not come back. I fully intend to but if I don't- no regrets, that's what my wife and I always tell each other, we've had a good time.

Key West Diary

An archive of more than 4600 photo essays about Keys living since June 2007. My thanks to all those who have made up the 2 million views received by this page over the years.
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